posted
What's your personal opinion of quickie recaps?
To elaborate: I'm smack dab in the middle of a scene where my protagonist demonstrates how great and powerful he is (only not really), and I know I'll have to write the reactions of the villagers who'd never before seen his particular brand of magic. But I've done the whole "Whoa! You can do that?!? [jaw hanging to the floor]" thing so many times, it's getting irritatingly repetitive. My solution is to skip the scene, move on to something else, and have the character think of the scene as it pertains to him (he's holed up in a cave, waiting out a particularly tempestuous storm, opining on dilemmas raised by questios posed during the skipped scene). As a result, he comes to a conclusion that greatly affects his outlook on who and what he is.
What do you think? How would you react to a scene that so affects his future, and yet you weren't there for? Cheated? Angry? Would you burn the book and curse my name to the gods of fertility? Or would you be glad that I didn't waste your time with the "stunned villagers" routine yet again? Should I skip their reactions, and give instead a small summary ("they reacted as he thought they would, and though it was getting repetitive, he couldn't really blame them. He'd had the same reaction, after all, to the Seigfried & Roy show when his brother took him to Vegas that time.")? Would you even care? Do you care now? Do I care?
Ooh. My head hurts. Damn this flu. Damn it to heck!
Umm.
I'm going to go now. I apologize for wasting your time.
(But not really. It's a letigimate question, even if the NyQuil has made me a bit tipsy.)
CVG
edited to add: He's so thorough in his ponderings of the scene I've skipped that I feel it would be redundant to include it, unless I re-wrote the cave bit, which for some reason, I wrote first. <shrug> Them's the way of the fiction-making, I guess.
[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited August 24, 2004).]
posted
If you really can't think of a way to make the scene interesting, definitely skip it and summarize later.
But, have you considered having something else going on, while the crowd is suitably impressed, that your characters have to deal with, thereby making their impressedness (?!) a sideline of a worthwhile and interesting scene?
posted
Uh, no, I haven't, but now that you mention it, an entire cadre of interesting ideas presents itself. Thanks! Posts: 552 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Why not have one person in the crowd that is rather unimpressed and jeering him.
Or have an angry, witch-burning mob appear and carry him off to the stakes, from which he must escape the perilous peril.
Or have someone who actually knows more than your protag does and can mentor him, strengthening skills further for the big fight ahead.
"Wax on, Daniel-san."
Or have is magic display backfire and seriously maim a few innocent bystanders... maybe worse, if possible.
Or maybe some kid from the village wants to tag along his be his student.
Or maybe as your protag is doing his considerable display of magic, he lapses into unconsciousness and has a vision quest and realizes he is "The One."
posted
What about approaching the scene from the protag's POV? Does he get bored with the same reactions all the time? Does he only do the magic to get a reaction (Ah, I've got them now...Works every time...)? Does this need to be the one time you skip it, or could you omit a couple of the earlier jaw-drops and include this one? Are you perhaps too close to your writing -- you see it as repetative but readers may not? Do you have critiquers reading this already? If so, what are they telling you? If not, it might help to have fresh eyes read over what you have and give you a readers opinion.
posted
You need to remember that your readers are intelligent people. On the one hand, you have to preserve the integrity of the scene. On the other hand, you don't want to beat your readers with the same point. So my advice would be to write it as you think it SHOULD be written. Then, when you go back to revise it, make sure you look at it as a READER would. For me, that's the only way to really determine (A) if the scene it too fat, (B) if it's too thin, or (C) if it's even necessary at all.
I can't tell you if you need the scene or not. That depends not only on how important it is to the character, but also how important it is to the reader. For example, if you prepare for it such a way that you'll merely be showing the reader what he/she has already discerned from the story, then don't show it. But if you've prepared them for one thing and plan to show them another, then you'll certainly need to show it. I hope that make sense.
But I go back to my original bit of advice: Write it as you think it SHOULD be told, then revise it as it NEEDS to be told.
posted
If this scene is so important perhaps you could rethink the other similar scenes. If he travels the contryside wowing people, then you could sum it all up in a single sentence. Or just have a sample scene and say the reaction was similar all around.
(But I like HSO's idea of having someone unimpressed.)
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